Avatar: Lost Legends
by ShadowYazoo
Summary: The story is taking place 700 years after events in ATLA. Most of the world is populated by non-benders, with bending being just a very distant memory.
1. Stirring up

Cold morning wind left frost on the branches of trees. Fog, drifting in from the ocean, made the scene fragile and eerie. The sun only now was reaching the small mountain village, where Tai Chi trainees already finished their stretches and were preparing for a lesson. Their master, a young man named Kajika, was slowly drinking hot tea as he took in the morning scenery. Wind was battering his blue scarf violently, but it seemed to have no effect on his concentration.

_The balance, focus, hidden power and outward softness are the basis of art of waterbending. Tui and La keep the balance, teaching us how the flow of powerful energies governs our abilities._

The text was old, written hundreds of years ago. Bending of any element hasn't been seen in generations, and by most people was assumed to be nothing more than a fairy tale. An old legend that might or might not have been real. That fact didn't sit well with Kaji, there were far too many stories for it to be just in someone's imagination. The world seemed more alive than people realized.

His cup was now empty and a small click announced that its heating function was turned off. Kaji set it aside and got up, brushing off his blue and grey training outfit. The cold morning air was burning his lungs, but it helped instill a sense of discipline and wakefulness in his students.

Once he tamed his long black hair into a high ponytail, his preparations were finished. Kaji calmly walked to the training yard, as the wooden planks of the walkway creaked beneath his feet.

'Kajika Sensei!' exclaimed students in unison, as he bowed politely. They trained through the morning up until noon, in the old art of waterbending which now was simply a set of moves that allowed for more fluid movements and a calmer mind.

* * *

Kaji increased the temperature of his cloak a few degrees, since afternoon stroll on an ocean beach at their latitude was not the most forgiving. Nowadays people tried their best to stay out of the elements as they went on with their daily lives.

Spotting a familiar set of fins rising from the water, Kaji whistled. 'Yo! Yiska! Here boy!'

An orca/serpent hybrid poked his head out of the water and let out a shrill but happy squawk, diving in to swim closer to his old time friend.

Kajika took off his cloak and set it under a rock so it would not blow away. He was wearing a heated wetsuit underneath, and brought with him his home-made swimming fins. It was hard to get some of the supplies to this remote town so improvisation was needed. As he stepped into the water it still felt pretty freezing, but he could bear it for an hour or two.

'I missed you, where have you been?' he laughed and scratched and petted the orca's nose. Most of his body was covered with dark green scales, with white ones on the bottom. Apart from the large dorsal fin, he had several smaller ones running all the way down to the tail. Yiska went hunting a school of fish several weeks ago and only now came back. Judging from how satisfied he looked, the hunt was a success.

'Don't eat too much, you'll swim slower' Kaji joked about the orca's larger belly. Yiska huffed and nudged him, smiling all along. Kaji was one of the very few that swam in such frigid water so that got Yiska's attention a decade ago when their friendship started. From then on he remained in about the same area, so they wouldn't be too far apart.

'I'll race you to that rock!' Kaji took in a breath and started swimming, trying to keep his head above the water since it was really cold. Yiska swam alongside him, not giving any slack. Kaji touched hand on the rock just a breath away from when Yiska got to it. Kaji yelled out in victory and spun on top of the rock in celebration, with his hands up.

The beach looked a little hazy from here all of the sudden, and Kaji realized he was looking at it through water. But…he just got out of it.

Dumbfounded he stared at a stream of water that was just hanging there in the air. It quickly fell back, but it sure was not normal.

'Did…did you see that?!' Kaji looked at Yiska and he nodded. The orca realized the guy was a waterbender a while ago, it would have been hard to keep up with an adult whale that swam his whole life otherwise.

'Woah…' he slid down to be halfway in the water and halfway still on the rock. 'I am…a..waterbender?' Kaji's eyes were wide in shock. Both his parents weren't benders, and it was unheard of in generations for normal people to have kids with his abilities. Plus he almost gave up on the idea of things like that being real, thinking it just might have been a nice story to inspire children to take tai chi.

_But it was __real__. _

Very real.

Yiska bumped into his hand, letting Kaji know he was there. Kaji petted him, trying to calm down. He needed to try it again to make sure this wasn't just an accident or a trick of light.

Breathing in and out slowly he gradually calmed down.

_You can do it, Kajika._

Lifting both arms slowly he watched as spectacularly nothing happened. Sighing he tried again, this time faster. Nothing happened, again. It occurred to him that he wasn't thinking of what he wanted the water to do.

_Up. And stay. _

He moved his hands up fast, then kept them up, still rising a little until stopping. A stream of water came up, then some of it fell down, but a sphere of it hovered in air for a little then it too broke apart and fell.

_It is official. You can bend water. It is not a trick. You aren't crazy. _

Yiska chirped and splashed some water on him. He was a little concerned why his friend looked so worried.

Kaji laughed and hugged him, brushing away a stray tear, which was a happy one. The world isn't so simple after all, and those great adventures and stories he heard… Well…now he was a part of one.

_I wonder if there are any others?_

* * *

In the following two months Kajika made sure his top talented apprentice knew what he was doing well enough so his students wouldn't be left without a master. Kaji was no longer content with just staying in this small town any longer. So many questions were burning inside him and he needed answers to.

During the day he tried to stay away from large sources of water when he did tai chi. Society he lived in moved so far away from bending a lot of people wouldn't understand it or would react very oddly to it. Kaji didn't want to start any trouble.

On late evenings, especially when it rained, he practiced his newfound skill on a remote beach with Yiska nearby. It didn't progress as far as he would have liked to, since he was just going by gut feeling, but he was always looking forward to his training since it still amazed him every time that he was able to tell water how to flow and what to do.

When his dojo business was done, he had a farewell dinner with all his students. Kaji also let his parents know that he will be out looking for more tai chi masters to train under (which was sort of true) for a few months or years but he will keep in touch. And with that he walked to the dock with his supplies and climbed into a black canoe.

Yiska swam alongside him, as Kajika rowed his canoe out to the ocean, leaving his hometown behind.


	2. Companions

The woods were already alive with sounds even before the sun rose. As the sky brightened the chorus just got louder, with more voices joining in. All this happiness about morning did not sit well with Zhi, as by nature she was a nighttime creature. But because her friend was human, she tried to be as awake as she could at least some of the day.

They stayed asleep until almost noon, until Shen decided to wake up. He stretched and yawned, hoisting himself up by a branch to sit next to a Zhi that was an owl the size of an adult deer. She had horns too, which managed to get themselves caught on braches more times than she would have liked.

With a drowsy mind he moved his hands to let the air next to the branch return to its natural state. The nifty trick he learned after several hundred of falls and bruises was to literally sleep on air. It gave the most amazing sleep, even though he had to be awake at some level to keep the air from escaping. At some point he concentrated so hard he found himself floating so high in the air the clouds were next to him and the forest was just a sheet of green way down below. He got scared and his pillow of air disappeared, but Zhi was luckily not too far to catch him.

Shen petted Zhi as she ruffled her feathers and hooted. She was the only other creature he regularly interacted with, since not many humans passed through these remote woods. He remembered that he once had a family, but he didn't know that after their helicopter crashed and when he was barely one at the time, the search for him was called off a few months later. They were probably still around somewhere, but a vague memory of four faces and no names was not much to go by.

Consequently, a one year old couldn't have survived in the woods on his own, but luckily he wasn't. Zhi was not only his friend but his sister, and they were together through thick and thin.

Now Shen was a young man, dressed in not much but self-made cloth over his hips and shoulders. He kept his black hair in a Mohawk, since that was one of the easiest styles for him to do.

There wasn't much need for speech between them, it was mostly just noises to communicate for a hunt or to know of a passing danger, but he did pick up a few words here and there. This is how they got their names.

None of the humans Shen saw used airbending, and that puzzled him. It just seemed so much easier.

….

* * *

Little welcomed the sun as it rose over the desert, which did too well of a job of warming it back up from nearly freezing night temperatures. Little has changed over time in life of nomads that called this place home. They had to move when the water at their site was exhausted, coming back only when rains have replenished it. Food was simple but filling. It was quiet most of the time, unless a sandstorm or thunderstorm decided to pass by. In the evening, when the heat died down, there were dances and songs and tales of old over a warming light of a fire.

Jade was the one to tell stories to children and adults alike. When she was born, their tribe was camping where a great spirit library once stood. It was long gone, but a small shred of what connected this place to the spirit world still remained. Jade often had dreams she would write down as stories, since she remembered them vividly even when she woke up. Some of those helped find water in places others didn't know about. Naturally after a few correct predictions, her tribe noticed her talent and they relied on it whenever water was too scarce.

Yan would play with extra sticks and quills, as he sat on her shoulder when Jade wrote. In this drab world he was a rare glimpse of color, a butterfly and lizard hybrid. Both his scales and wings were a shimmering array of all shades of blue, green and purple. He was fleeing from a few desert birds when he landed on Jade. The birds decided not to mess with her and Yan stuck with her ever since.

Jade gave him a treat since she needed what he was playing with, and he chirped, enjoying it. The story that was now in her mind was about people moving sand with a dance, creating great structures with it, and then letting them disappear back into the dunes as they moved. Sand was one of the constants in her life, and she never really thought of it as something that could move so fluidly without wind pushing it.

She ran her hand through her short hair, with a few bright green long streaks in it. Yan hissed in protest, but calmed down when he saw nothing too odd was happening.

_Why can't anyone do that now?_

A few brief images ran through her mind which left a bad aftertaste. People fought and died in them, and there seemed to be a great deal of unrest. What once was clear and commonplace was getting more and more distant and hazy.

She sighed and looked outside her tent at the dunes around them. The wind was hot in dry air, moving the wind chimes slightly. Yan climbed down her arm and trotted over to the cold metal cup filled with fresh water. He dipped his head in it and squawked, then drank it with his thin tongue. His wings opened and closed slowly, reflecting colored light specks on the walls.

'Is that good?' asked Jade with a smile, watching him. Yan made a shrill happy sound in response, but didn't stop drinking. Jade laughed at how funny that sounded. 'You are a silly lizard.'

She continued writing for most of the day, since there was not much point in braving the temperature outside.

That evening she told more stories as usual, the one she was writing along with a few older ones. Often they had characters and great adventures, and she liked telling them in as many different voices for each character as she could muster. She spoke slower and calmer when she was describing a setting or what something looked like, more passionate and dramatic when there was something that was unexpected or fast paced, and by the end of the story if people didn't need a few seconds to realize the story was over and they were back at the camp, she didn't feel she did her job right.

Most of tribe listened, unless they had chores to attend to and even then they tried to stay within an earshot.

They were staying by a small desert river and her water canteens were getting close to empty, so after her task was done and most people went back in their tents she headed to it. Outside of the ring illuminated by fires it was dark, so dark you could see almost every star in the sky above them.

Jade made her way to the river carrying her canteens, along with a sleepy Yan on her shoulder. You could hear the water as it splashed, so it was not too hard to find. Her eyes were already adjusting to less light, so she could see the river.

She was filling up the last container when she felt the spikes on Yan's neck rise and his antenna brushed against her cheek as he intently stared across the river. Some kind of animal was standing across it, without moving. It was a little unsettling, since Jade could usually hear when animals that size were nearby.

Something was in its mouth, which looked too neat to be just a stick or a bone.

'Stay there' said Jade to the creature, motioning for Yan to fly up. He did so, hovering next to her, still staring across the river. Jade took off her dress, leaving it with the water and jumped into the river, swimming closer to the animal that intrigued her. It could have been dangerous, but she didn't get that sense from it.

On closer inspection it looked like a fox, one that hasn't been seen in a very very long time. He looked really intelligent, since he didn't bark or move away, but simply waited for Jade to come closer. Once she did, it dropped a scroll it was holding in her hand and when she looked up from it, the fox was gone.

_Was that real?_

Yan was checking out the spot the fox just was at, then settled on it confused and tilted his head to the side, looking at Jade.

'Yeah…me too,' she sighed and watched the scroll, expecting it to disappear any minute too. It refused though, staying pretty solid and not disappearing the longer she looked at it.

'Can you help me?' she asked Yan holding up a scroll. She couldn't read it without light.

Yan flew over and picked it up. It was a little heavy so he quickly made his way back to her dress on the other side.

The cold was starting to get to her, now that adrenaline was leaving, so she quickly made her way back too, dressed and then she was in her tent, opening the scroll in the light, without even remembering the trip in between.

'Sandbending' was its title. Various moves were shown, drawn by a quill not much different than her own, a long ago. The images were faded but still readable.

…

* * *

'Netsuuu! Come join usss! We are going to the beach!' yelled one of her friends from outside the shop she was working at. 'Why are you still there? Isn't it your break?'

Netsu really wanted to go but this order was being difficult. 'It was supposed to be! But I can't right now! I'll go tomorrow, I promise!' They yelled back in forth a little bit, since the owner wasn't there and it was hotter inside than outside and her friends didn't want to come in. She heard them leave and looked back at what was giving her trouble all morning. A special order katana she was working on for a week wasn't coming out right and she had to remake that thing several times already. Swordsmithing wasn't common anymore, but several artisans including her master and her kept the art alive.

A flutter of wings announced that her messenger hawk, Shige, was back bringing yet another order. This was somewhat of a quirk nowadays, since most people used other, more modern means of communication. They didn't always work best on the islands though, and Shige was as reliable as hawks always were.

Netsu sighed and went outside, to catch a breather and see what Shige brought. Female hawk was drinking from a small cup in her claw, as her other leg was wrapped around Netsu's leather armlet. Netsu's outfit consisted of a long red skirt with a fire nation belt buckle on it, an orange sports bra top and armlets. Her hair stood out the most though. With two long yellow spikes mimicking Netsu's head feathers, and a huge complex ponytail almost as red as her dress, it was definitely unusual.

Her gold eyes scanned the messages, one from her master saying he will still be out looking for supplies a while longer and telling her not to set the shop on fire, and another one asking about the katana she was making.

_Aargh…so frustrating…its gonna be done when its gonna be done, man. _

She made sure Shige had something to eat and went back into the shop, since the step she was doing was very crucial.

After a long day of work the katana only sort-of behaved. Frustrated and tired, Netsu closed the shop and went to sleep on a bunk in the back, with Shige right next to her on a perch.

In the morning she ate a big breakfast and grabbed her surfboard, to get to the beach before the tourist crowd got there. The friend she wanted to go with yesterday, wasn't a morning person so she went alone. Surfing was one of her favorite activities, since she was obsessed with stories about waterbending ever since she was little and that was the closest she could get. Whenever her friends played firebending games when they were little, she always would say how she would rather waterbend and everyone looked at her weird.

Waterbending just seemed so awesome, water was everywhere, especially on an island, and she never got tired looking at it.

Water this morning was cold, but it felt nice after the way uncomfortably hot yesterday. The surf was pretty good so she made her way out there on her board. She just kind of floated there for a while, even as waves got bigger and bigger, then they got to be the right size and she got to work. Years of practice made balancing on the board second nature to her.

The sun was getting brighter and brighter as it went higher above the horizon. At one point, she caught a glimpse of it through the wave. It looked like it was moving, almost like a bright fire, setting the water droplets ablaze with light.

Netsu yelled out, brushing her hand through the water, happy with how awesome that looked and dipped in for a swim, making her way back to the board for a few more rounds.

Then it was back to work. She never quite dreaded work so much as now. No matter what she tried, the flame and the metal just weren't agreeing. But she had to keep trying.

She thought of the way the sun looked today, then glanced back at the fire, as it cloaked the red hot blade and danced around it. Some of it was slowly climbing up it, almost like a wave.

_That looks odd. _

She continued working, then took the sword out of the forge and cooled it off. Right away she noticed something about it has changed. It actually did what it was supposed to, and looked like it was one of the best blades she made yet.

_Woah. Nice._

'Wooho! Shige! I did it!' She pumped her fist in the air and then the roof started smoking. Shige squaked in distress and flapped her wings.

'Holy shit!' Netsu freaked out and ran for the extinguisher, putting out the flame above them. 'Crap, now I need to fix that before he sees it.'

She looked back at it then at the forge. There was no way fire from it could have gotten there.

_Wait…_


End file.
